by Russell Johnson
What
else can you say about Xian? You go there to see the Terra Cotta Army…period.
The formation of thousands of warriors, horses and chariots that guard
the tomb of Emperor Qin Shi Huang is truly a world wonder.
Xian,
itself, is a busy, industrial, polluted city. You wouldn’t want
to live there but it has a fascinating street life. My traveling companions
(several from India)
were so tired of boring tour group food that we walked 45 minutes one
night to The Indian Restaurant (that’s the name of it) run by some
folks from Bangalore. The street scene along the way was almost as tasty
as the food.
Guilin
Guilin,
today, lives for tourism. It is a place that the Chinese bureaucracy
seems to have gotten right. Guilin boasts a new airport, a fine main
road built by the Malaysians and is very clean for China. It even has
a few tidy toilets. (It is easy to find a restroom in most of China
because you can smell them a block away). The countryside around Guilin
is remindful of Bali. No wonder
the mountains that line the Li River
-- with names like Folded Brocade Hill --inspired watercolorists. I
once attended a conference at which a Chinese man was the speaker of
honor. He looked out into the audience and noticed very few of his race.
"It
is unusual for me to be looking at so many 'round eyes' at once,"
he said. "Think about it, if your Adam and Eve would have been
Chinese, they would have eaten the snake".
We
didn't eat snake on our Li River boat trip although we did sample some
snake wine...which is supposed to make a man more of a man.
To travel in a tour group in China is like being deployed by the Red
Army. Big busses full of tourists, trucks filled with baggage. The "chow"
is bland and practically every meal is the same no matter what region
you are in…your basic Chop Suey that invariably includes a plate
of frenchfries. Government-managed tourism is a military maneuver with
little room for deviation. There are a few good tour guides but many
are still of the old guard…scared that breaking the rules for the
benefit of the customer will cause them to lose face with their superiors.
Ah,
but my friends from New Zealand had the right idea. Traveling independently
in China can be a great experience. I spent an evening with mother and
daughter. We hired a trishaw instead of following the crowd…talked
to people on the street. China has a wonderful variety of cuisines that
you will not discover in the tourist mess halls. Traveling about China
independently is still not easy, but is doable and can be extremely
rewarding. My Kiwi friends took the train on their final leg from Guilin
to Hanoi, a grueling 30 hours, they told me, but well worth it even
though a train wreck delayed them for hours.
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